Came across this nifty guide to Do-It-Yourself Digital Distribution Platforms which breaks down how much of a cut filmmakers receive from streaming or download revenues when their movies sell online. It doesn't include services such as Netflix, Vodo, Indieflix, Indiepix and others that require approval though.

He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

kinda scrolled this tbh, but i think it's saying that in an unprecedented hollywood move several people with lots of money, including ron fucking howard, are going to give children money for being wonderful beautiful magical creatures

First, a quick primer for those not familiar with how film financing happens in many territories outside the United States. In Canada, the U.K., and many European and Latin American countries, there are handfuls of government subsidized funding bodies that providing financing to locally produced films and television shows. The money comes from a variety of sources, including taxes or monies paid by broadcasters who operate in the country. The idea is that this financing helps foster continued creative and cultural growth, and helps balance the scales somewhat against the influx of Hollywood products. This system has certainly supported numerous auteurs around the world, but what is the responsibility of VOD players to support the system, seeing as how they don't technically reside in any one country?

That was the crux of the barbed question Netflix honcho Ted Sarandos faced today at the tail end of his talk at the Cannes Film Festival. A French journalist pointed out that Netflix is based out of the Netherlands in Europe, they don't have to contribute to the same subsidies as other VOD players and broadcasters, and then moreover speculated that Netflix's unwillingness to play ball would lead to the destruction of film culture in Europe.

Sarandos countered that Netflix certainly wasn't taking away any existing funding for filmmakers, and by hiring local talent for their own original programming, they were actually being quite supportive of filmmaking in Europe. But not one to let his voice go unheard, Harvey Weinstein was in attendance and jumped up to the defense of Netflix (who distributed his "Marco Polo" series and are working on the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" sequel).

“This is a guy who buys documentaries and cares. This is a guy who buys foreign-language movies and cares," Weinstein said. "And every one of these monopolies, let’s start with [French broadcaster] TF1…they’ve gotten a wake-up call by what Netflix has done. And you know what? They’ve all gotten better and their quality is going to improve and they’re going to be big customers for your product. So, having the rebel in the room made us all better and stronger.”

FLEMING: We broke a story this week that I predict will further dissolve the barriers between TV and feature films. Brad Pitt sets his next star vehicle at Netflix. It’s different from past Netflix deals like the Crouching Tiger “sequel” or a four-pack of Adam Sandler comedies, because who knows what the theatrical release value of either of those really is. We know Pitt is one of the few globally bankable stars who matter anymore. Also an enterprising producer, he realistically assessed the risky commercial prospects of a prestige passion project, and bypassed the enormous P&A and foreign sales and uncertain theatrical penetration for a slam dunk at Netflix. Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings are busting down doors all over the world and will be in more countries by the time this film rolls out in late 2016. And they were only too happy to pay a premium for a game changing coup. And so a potentially huge global audience of Netflix subscribers will see the David Michod-directed War Machine, with Pitt playing a character modeled on General Stanley McChrystal, who ran the war in Afghanistan until undermined by politics, and some indiscreet quotes in a Rolling Stone article. This turns the traditional theatrical feature model on its ear and creates an alternative to what often proves to be an incredibly costly and inefficient strategy; who not bring movies directly to an audience satisfied to stay home and watch it on the 60 inch TV screen.

BART: Don’t knock the ‘inefficient strategy so aggressively–it’s still the strategy that has kept Hollywood purring for generations. Still, Pitt’s venture should be studied by every star. The ever increasing obsession of studios on tentpole picture has sharply reduced the opportunities for top actors to find a challenging role (unless they like ants). The situation is vaguely reminiscent of that moment in the 40s and ‘50s when the studios abruptly terminated their contracts with top stars. Suddenly every actor was desperately trying to develop his own films – a very few, like Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster showed any talent at it. Today, the big stars find that new platforms are beckoning and need to find ways to access them. Since agents look upon their stars as “brands,” perhaps they should follow the lead of the top fashion brands that pursue down-market labels. Think of Valentino, Armani, Missoni and Ralph Lauren. Why shouldn’t Clooney have a Clooney Red (like Valentino)or Di Caprio a Di Caprio Exchange(like Armani)? Liberated from the pressure of finding a decent part in a superhero movie (Downey is a very lucky man), they might come up with some fascinating projects for Netflix or Amazon or some sharp-edged short form pieces for other platforms – think mobile! I don’t yearn to see any more Adam Sandler movies, but he could still be likeable in six minute chunks on my smart phone.

FLEMING: Here is what I like about this. Had that Entourage movie been made for and shown on HBO, it would have cost less money, and it would have created enough of a ratings bang to have birthed an annual visit with Ari Gold and the boys. It would have been a win. Instead, its $25 million domestic gross (and miniscule overseas tally) puts it in the summer casualty column because these niche movies just cost too much money to launch to the mass market. Netflix got its TV game changer with House of Cards (Kevin Spacey is a guy who has shown the flexibility to gamble on platform disruptive projects, including Margin Call), and he needed one big movie star to take a gamble, and now he got it and it will open the door to all kinds of things. When I saw Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson peel the layers on complicated characters over the course of 8 or so hours in True Detective, I felt the ground shifting. I love mystery novel series, but you never see them turned into movies. Michael Connelly battled in court for years to get back his Harry Bosch novels that languished forever at Paramount, and then Amazon Studios turned it into the streaming service equivalent of a page-turner novel with Titus Welliver playing Bosch.

I would love to see Netflix revive Robert B Parker’s Spenser For Hire series with a great actor like Kyle Chandler playing the boxer-turned-gumshoe, serving up a new mystery every year. The possibilities here for quality are enormous. You can never replicate the shared theater going experience on something like Jurassic World, (which will hit break-even in days, Universal’s fourth film this year to recoup within 30 days of release) and even certain smaller movies where you shut out the world for a couple hours. It can be a great business that pours off cash at an astonishing rate. But until movie makers and exhibitors figure it out with windowing and find a way around the spectacularly inefficient manner in which marginal movies are marketed, I’d call War Machine constructive progress. I caught up with John Ridley at our Awardsline Emmy party last week. Hadn’t seen him in forever, but we kind of grew up together, me covering him when he was struggling and his Three Kings script got taken away and refashioned into a memorable movie by David O Russell and his book Stray Dogs got overhauled by Oliver Stone into U-Turn. Ridley has since won the Oscar for 12 Years A Slave and spends much of his time on the series American Crime. He said he loves movies but relishes the authorship given a TV creator/show runner that isn’t part of feature films. We both agreed this whole golden era of series occurred because Hollywood stopped making edgy mid budget films, forcing guys like Ridley to the small screen so they could feed their families. Pitt/Netflix is another iteration of a creative business adapting and finding a way for quality to rise. Some lessons will never be learned–how is it they’ve made four Jurassic Park movies and still go into each one not realizing a dinosaur theme park is a bad idea?–but Hollywood is evolving fast and Netflix is forcing the issue. My question is how much longer the Academy will require award season “qualifying theatrical runs” for Oscar consideration, which means you show it in a theater in New York and Los Angeles. Netflix will provide that for War Machine, but it is beginning to seem silly and meaningless, since it’s not how this project will be consumed globally.

BART: Let’s not get carried away, Mike. A theatrical release is still a smart and reasonable mandate. There are elements of the Academy process that don’t make sense any more — an example is the requirement that documentaries need a New York Times review to qualify for Oscar nomination. But leave the movie stuff alone.

FLEMING: My question is how much longer the Academy will require award season “qualifying theatrical runs” for Oscar consideration, which means you show it in a theater in New York and Los Angeles. Netflix will provide that for War Machine, but it is beginning to seem silly and meaningless, since it’s not how this project will be consumed globally.

BART: Let’s not get carried away, Mike. A theatrical release is still a smart and reasonable mandate. There are elements of the Academy process that don’t make sense any more — an example is the requirement that documentaries need a New York Times review to qualify for Oscar nomination. But leave the movie stuff alone.

It's a good point though. Obviously it's something that's still a few years away, but it will have to be addressed eventually. Especially if theatrical releases increasingly become financially viable for only the biggest blockbusters. Unless they adapt, there will come a time when all nominees will be The Dark Knights by default.

He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

For a generation, video stores were to filmmakers what bookstores were to writers. They were the salons where many of today’s best directors first learned their craft. The art of discovery that video stores encouraged through the careful curation of clerks was the fertile, if sometimes fetid, soil from which today’s film world sprung. Video stores were also the financial engine without which the indie film movement wouldn’t have existed.

In I Lost it at the Video Store, Tom Roston interviews the filmmakers–including John Sayles, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell and Allison Anders–who came of age during the reign of video rentals, and constructs a living, personal narrative of an era of cinema history which, though now gone, continues to shape film culture today.

“This is a book that was waiting to happen, and fortunately it was Tom Roston who wrote it. After we lost it at the movies, a later era of cinephiles lost it at the video store, and this is their story in their words–nostalgic, vivid, and important, because video germinated a new generation of great filmmakers.” –Peter Biskind, author of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film

“Informative, hilarious, a little sad, but mostly just exuberant: This chronicle of a lost era details not just how the video-rental revolution shaped a generation of filmmakers, but how it changed the ways we watch and talk about film. It may even make you nostalgic for rewinding.” –Stephanie Zacharek, Chief Film Critic, The Village Voice

“A Proustian madeleine of a book, I Lost It at the Video Store celebrates the images and textures of a nearly-gone era, as well as examining its importance to a generation of artists.” –Matt Zoller Seitz, editor-in-chief, RogerEbert.com

“[Video] stores themselves have faded into history, but their now-famous onetime inhabitants – Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Doug Liman and Darren Aronofsky, among others – remember them well. Their stories, assembled here, provide a memorable chronicle of a golden age of pure movie love.” — Kurt Loder, film critic and former MTV host

“What a terrific read. It’s a blast to revisit those (delightful, maddening) hours I spent trying to pick a movie, from the perspective of Tarantino, Sayles, and the rest of the all-star cast Tom Roston has assembled. These smart, funny, and sometimes-clashing voices from the other side of the VHS box reveal how video-store culture worked, how it influenced filmmaking, and what’s lost and gained in the streaming world that’s replacing it. The result is an entertaining story that goes way beyond nostalgia: It will make you appreciate why the video-shop era mattered, whether you lived through it or not.” –Rob Walker, author of Buying In: What We Buy and Who We Are

i'm about to have a panic attack trying to decide which topic to post this in, but i wanna btw fyi fwiw that Kentucky Audlley is being adorable.

the run down is he decided to make this hat:

which he describes this way:

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It's important to spread the message about movies. Most people like TV shows and virtual reality better now, or even internet games, but we shouldn't forget about movies, because there's been some good ones over the years like Diner and American graffiti. If people forgot about movies, we're in deep shit. So that's the main reason you should wear this hat. And don't be afraid to use it as a conversation starter. If someone asks you, "so what's the deal with the cap?" Just answer: "spreading the gospel, my brother". Be extra nice, since if you wear the hat, you're representing all movies. It's a lot of responsibility so don't take it lightly, like Spider-Man.

he's been interviewed about its creation:

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How did you come to navy blue and white?

I tested out several other colors, like green and red, but I liked the way navy blue looked the best. The hard part was picking out the font. And putting a slight curve on it.

this is his Facebook post that first led me to suspect he was being adorable:

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Blown away by how many people want the ’movies’ hat. 76 in 2 days! Can’t wait to wear these things with everybody.

it's inspired social discussion:

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Eleanor Wilson Am I the only woman who wants the 'movies' hat? We should probably discuss the gender gap in the hat industry.

Movies themselves are largely to blame for driving "discerning consumers" to TV. When the majority of theatrical releases are reboots or sequels or involve superheroes, you really can't blame people. And now we're at a point where those are the only things that seem to reliably make money.

Obviously digital releases and home theater systems are also to blame. People, myself included, are not as excited to pay a premium to see indie films at their local Landmark when they can get a roughly equivalent version at home at the same time or earlier. The threshold for needing "the theatrical experience" has been pushed pretty high.

There's also the fact that TV shows are (1) significantly more addictive and (2) almost infinitely convenient to consume. A potent combination.

you said movies themselves are to blame, then you said that's because bad movies are the ones that people go to and which make money then you said people yourself included choose to stay home instead then you mentioned the good reasons for liking tv.

so i definitely wouldn't agree that the problem is movies themselves, and i just wanted to talk about this hat and adorableness

To be fair, that's a really simplistic paraphrase. It's a complex issue. When I say "movies are largely to blame" I'm talking about the movies that are in theaters, that are marketed and supported. I'm not saying "cinema itself is to blame!" so don't worry.

Obviously digital releases and home theater systems are also to blame. People, myself included, are not as excited to pay a premium to see indie films at their local Landmark when they can get a roughly equivalent version at home at the same time or earlier.

There's also the fact that TV shows are (1) significantly more addictive and (2) almost infinitely convenient to consume. A potent combination

did you mean simplistic or concise? and now you're adding "complex issue" and ideas about marketing and support as if that was obviously there the entire time in subtext, which is absurd, and i don't think herd mentality is a complex issue.

Yes I mean simplistic, and to an insulting degree, as your second response also demonstrates.

I think we're even mostly on the same page. Can you de-escalate a bit? You introduced a topic and I engaged in a civil manner, but your response to that was to attempt to mock my response and end the discussion. Are we not adults here?

I think it is in fact a complex issue, because "movies are largely to blame." The interplay between what's presented to consumers and what we choose to support is interesting and worth talking about. How much is technology (and the title of this thread) to blame, how much are we to blame, and how much is "Hollywood" to blame?

Given the niche value of TV, I don't there's much herd mentality happening there. People don't herd toward Orange Is the New Black. They don't even herd toward Netflix, now that Amazon Prime and Hulu are viable alternatives. Moving away from theaters toward TV is like a cascade of splintering.

There's some herd mentality when everyone goes to see The Avengers, sure. But I think that's more about a common denominator. You could argue that people herded to see Gravity ($274 million domestic), because the word quickly got out that you really needed that theatrical experience. So is that herding or being a discerning consumer of media? Even this sub-issue is a complex issue.